Repository: UIHistories Project: UIS Long Range Plan - 1970 (Sangamon State Univ) [PAGE 24]

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PART III - THE LONG RANGE DEVELOPMENT PLAN A. PLANNING OBJECTIVES - DESIGN SOLUTION

PLANNING OBJECTIVES In the design of a new university, after the academic program is stated and the literal space requirements are set forth, the urgent question is: What physical form should this new university take, what form of buildings and grounds will contribute to, and not get in the way of the ultimate aim - to learn? With noble and high hopes, a fine program, and a beautiful site, ideally, what form should be aspired to? 1. The design objective is to create a university environment that achieves, as nearly as possible, the close-contact conditions of that familiar basic teaching and learning situation — a log with a teacher at one end and a student at the other. To keep distractions, inconveniences and discomforts at the minimum is to fortify concentration on the work in which the student makes so great an investment. At the same time, the student is deprived of valuable experience in working and developing his individuality under the actual conditions of life if he is too securely insulated from them in his learning years. The provisions in the educational program of Sangamon State University for course work off the campus have encouraged the planning consultants to think of the University as a place of specialized effort, where every possible means is offered for intensive study, and for the exchange and enlargement of ideas. The kinship of the campus plan with town layout maintains references to urban life, but on a level that proposes certain ideals of urbanity, as the academic disciplines propose scholarly ideals* The architects believe that the architecture of Sangamon State University will succeed in proportion to its response to human as well as to functional needs. The architectural composition and detailing should be of high quality, which does not mean